


we don't like outsiders (in our corners of the world)

by quinte (luchiden)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, also im annoyed by the fact there are no last names for them in the characters tag, lance being homesick and keith being an Angel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 14:10:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11015004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luchiden/pseuds/quinte
Summary: There's nothing really that can comfort him but at least, he thinks, this feeling is new and warm and he can work with that.





	we don't like outsiders (in our corners of the world)

**Author's Note:**

> i love kudos and comments, and feedback in general! ;find me @ [my tumblr](http://kunpimwah.tumblr.com)

"I miss it." And his eyes swallow the cosmos, like an overdue star, and suddenly all, _all_ , is dark but he. "I miss everything."

There was no such sea like the sea back home, no matter what kind of planets he set on but sometimes, in some obscure way, he could still smell the salt on his skin and it made something inside him claw at his heart, aching, longing, wanting. The tides used to speak to him a long time ago. How sad, he thinks, that all these planets have no moons and suns to give birth to new whispers.

He sits at the neck of his blue lion, curled up on himself, feeling the wide vastness of the space around him, and he hears her gentle purr underneath him.

In the darkness of the sky devoid of stars, it's the only thing that grounds him.

 

 

If Lance were to think of Keith in some way other than the way he's thought about him up until now it would never be soft. Keith is, essentially, in his entirety, a white-hot lightning, a burn, a sting, a spark. Everything he does, from the way he pilots, to the way he fights - though there is a sort of sharp, polished beauty to it - has too many edges, too much force.

But, he tries.

"Hey, Pidge." Lance says, crossing his legs, sitting on the floor. He sniffs out the chill of the air vent and rubs at his forearms, trying to warm himself up. It's been a cold while.

Pidge turns around to face him, pushing up her glasses with the tips of her fingers. "Yes?"

"What month is it on Earth now?"

Pidge sighs. She crosses her ankles and her eyes wander in the way her eyes always wander when she's thinking. Lance knows she's calculating numbers he'll never understand. Math was never Lance's thing.

"Hmm, it's supposed to be somewhere around October." She licks her lips. "I had forgotten about the fact that Earth even _had_ months. Man, I haven't thought about this in so long."

Lance can't tell her he's thought about it so much he feels the seasons changing underneath his toes.

"You don't have a twin, do you?" She doesn't wait for him to answer. "If you did they'd have about seven seconds on you right now. We've been travelling so fast-" She trails off and Lance never gets to know how that sentence finishes.

Time has not forgiven Lance.

She turns around again, cracking her knuckles before she starts writing something down, her tongue between her teeth like what she does when she's focusing. Lance knows he won't be getting another word out of her. That's just how she is.

Now, if Lance were to think of Keith (well, he never said he doesn't--) in any other way it would never be soft. But Keith's expression is so open, so emphatic, when he puts a hand on Lance's shoulder and squeezes it almost feels like he _understands._ Lance knows that nobody could. But, stars, he has not been touched in so long he feels like he is starving for the heat, inbetween all these empty spaces and the cold metallic rooms. He puts his hand above Keith's, trying to lock him in for just few seconds (ticks-, jesus, lance, stop thinking like an earthling) more. He smiles at Keith and Keith nods back. There are no words to be said. No, not that. There are no words to be said that Lance wants to hear.

 

(And what he wants to hear is -

the screeches of loud tires down the asphalt, the soles of his sneakers colliding with the ground as he skipped ropes, the robotic ding of the doors of the supermarket down the road opening, the rain, the sun, the wind, the sound of his mother humming nursery rhymes to his cousins because everybody is family. Even Lance, who did not belong to the shore. He was, he is, family, still. -

\- what he wants to hear is.)

Lance is grateful for the quiet.

 

 

It's a thought that brings him relief, all those memories he has of home. Even that one, that had made his chest hurt a long time ago,

"Mamá, why is Lance different?" His young brother had whispered as if it were some sort of a secret, some sort of a password that would let him into a hideout. "He's always somewhere else."

"Mm." She had patted his head, matting down the curls to his forehead. "He's a child of the sea as much as he is mine. But that's not a sad thing. We love him anyway, don't we?"

And, he remembers, his brother, starry-eyed and smiling, nodding so vehemently, there was no doubt that he was loved. Not that he had ever wondered, not that there have ever been a doubt. He had been so loved. 

It had made him feel like there was never anything wrong with him in the first place.

(And for the first time, he had feared the ocean for eventually Lance would love it all too much.)

 

 

Lance!

Lance, buddy.

Lance, talk to me, we can't detect your Lion's signal. Where are you?

Lance. Lance, come try this, I just pulled it out of the refrigerator and not to brag but it tastes _exactly_ like the vanilla panna cotta we ate on your birthdays. Dude, okay maybe not exactly, your mom _is_ a great cook but- oh, just come and _try_ it!

Lance.

(Now, he's not ungrateful for anything, that's not how he was raised, he thinks it's an honor if anything, but sometimes he thinks he just might have started hating his own name.)

_"You were so brave out there, my paladin." His Lion speaks to him. "My comrade, my companion. I am so proud of you. My friend."_

 

 

"Can I come in?"

"Uh-" A pause. "Uh? Yeah, um, sure." Lance moves away from the door and it slides open without a single button. Nobody hears it when it closes, either.

"So what's-"

"I just-" Keith interrupts him, then stops, breath hitching. He shuffles awkwardly, too many limbs in the wrong places and his tongue tied into a knot. He rakes his fingers through his bangs and tries again. "I thought you might appreciate the company."

Funnily enough, it's right here, like this, where he feels like maybe he belongs somewhere he never thought he would. Funnily enough, it's right here, like this, that he feels the life radiating off of Keith and everything is far too vivid, far too bright. Keith's so close Lance can sniff out his shampoo and it smells like rain, and he doesn’t know how that’s possible. But the want to touch him is so ardent inside of Lance.

"Usually, I'd say no and keep my cool façade ‘cos you know, bad boys don't need anybody-" He smiles, forming his hands into finger guns and making shooting motions at Keith, before he drops them, as well as the plastic grimace he's forced his face into. "- but now, I'm just really, really sad."

He takes a breath through his teeth, eyes bright and wide and he's, oh so close to crying. Keith can see it in the way his hands clench and his nails almost draw blood, like he wants to tear himself apart. "I'm just," A pause. He lowers his head, not daring to look anywhere at all but still he rubs his eyes. He's not crying. He's not crying, god fucking damn it all, but his cheeks are wet and his chest fills with empty sobs. "I just miss home."

(But all Keith can think about is if Lance knows, that his lashes are so long, they cast shadows on his cheeks, and that he's always loved the freckles on Lance's back, and that he's months away from Earth's light but his cheeks are still sun-kissed, and god, he is so, so beautiful. His eyes swallow the cosmos and he is so bright that Keith sees his after-image burning at the back of his eyelids when he closes his eyes.)

There had been a few moments of silence (but, god, it might have been seven seconds, it might have been more, it might have been several hundred decades since he's felt so close to anybody) and Keith envelops him, hands caging him in and Lance thinks the whole cosmos might have folded in on itself into the box that this moment is. For now, there is nothing but this shallow corner, filled with all the things that Lance could never say.

Instead, he cries, so silently he might have not been crying at all, hands sinking into the folds of Keith’s shirt. Keith's fingers rub slow circles on Lance's spine and maybe there's warmth in here, so far away from home, as well. It's been so long, so long, and he craves touch, he wants it closer.

"Keith?" And Keith hurts from the inside for he's never heard a voice so broken, like tearing paper apart, like breaking a heart.

He hums.

"This is a strange request but-" He blinks away the tears, wiping his cheek against Keith's shoulder. Had it been anybody else Keith would have found it indescribably disgusting. But, well, he's come to terms that he can think of no other word for Lance than endearing. "A strange request but can I brush your hair? I did it a lot for my older sis."

"Oh, so now I am your sister? And I thought we had-"

"Please don't say it."

"-a bonding moment."

"God, Keith, I swear to God-"

Keith's laugh rumbles inside of Lance's own chest.

"You can brush my hair." Keith says, kissing Lance's temple.

 

 

(And Lance would ask Keith later, warm hands against cool skin, if he missed Earth as much as Lance did and no, no, Keith would never miss that desert, Keith would never miss the sandstorms and the windows he had to nail down so they wouldn’t burst out at the seams. No, he had always wished for the empty sky. But there’s a single thing,

“I think I miss your sea.”

“Have you ever been there?” Has he ever been on the coasts that Lance grew up on, feet in the sand, the smell of burnt campfire wood, the cold nights wherein Lance spent his time out on the shore, listening to the lull.

“No. But I would like to.”)

**Author's Note:**

> _Keith thinks, when Lance’s eyes fall on the outlines of the sea, he is unraveling._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _It is blue, so blue, more blue than he could ever remember and the wind is gentle in his hair, caressing his cheeks, and the sun shines down his bare arms, and well-_
> 
>  
> 
>  _Lance’s eyes overflow with tears and he sees nothing but he knows he’s screaming, god knows, is he screaming, raw and open, something so bare, something so jagged and torn apart, coming right from his core. He’s screaming, tears etching lines into his soft skin and Keith is holding him, and the waves are finally whispering,_  
>   
>  “Welcome home, my child.”


End file.
